


Don't Let Them Walk

by synergistic



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 01, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synergistic/pseuds/synergistic
Summary: The Atlanta group has been waiting for two months. Waiting to be rescued, waiting for civilization to kickstart back up again, or just waiting to die like so many around them had. When an SI, a person from our world, joins the group, they get a kickstart, but it's not exactly polite. It seems like people don't like it when you talk shit about their survival strategy.Especially when the person talking shit is an eleven year old. This is going to be a long apocalypse.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 155





	1. Shane

“Shane, I need you to talk to that boy, Nicki.”

Shane looked up from the tree stump he was using as a table. On it was a dismantled M-9. All the pieces were laid out neatly, waiting to be put back together. Except for the bolt, which Shane was cleaning rhythmically with a rag. He’d been going at it for a couple minutes, long after any grime would have been wiped away. The weapon had been clean when he started. It hadn’t been fired since he put down a geek two days ago, and he’d torn it apart twice since then. He needed the familiar motions. For Shane Walsh, weapons maintenance was a ritual more than a chore, it was a chance for him to throw his mind towards something that wasn’t the world they were suddenly living in. He liked to think he was adapting better than most, but everyone needs a moment or two in the day where they’re not thinking about death. Shane probably needed those moments more than he realized.

“What’d the kid do?”

“He’s scaring Carl and the other kids, talking about how we’re all gonna turn into those things.”

Shane sighed and put down the bolt. Nicki was… to be honest, Shane thought the boy was a bit of a nutcase. Glenn had found him walking down I-85, sweating his eleven year old ass off in jeans and a denim jacket. He’d wrapped his arms and legs in duct tape as well, probably to ward off geek bites, which would have been smart if it weren’t the middle of a Georgian summer. As it was, the kid probably would have died of heat stroke if the group's resident supply runner hadn’t pulled up when he had. Glenn somehow convinced him to go to the camp, but it had taken a week for the boy to say a word to anyone. During that time, he had sat in the middle of the camp, clutching a piece of rebar and staring at everyone who came near him.

Lord knows how Jim of all people had gotten Nicki to open up, the mechanic was more than a bit nutty himself. But it came out that the boy had watched his parents die while they tried to escape Atlanta. Shane had come into the RV where they’d been talking just in time to hear the last part of their conversation.

“The only reason I survived was because they didn’t.”

Maybe the boy deserved a bit of grief.

“He’s traumatized Lori. No preteen is gonna be able to handle watching his parents get eaten.”

“I know that, and I’m not asking you to punish him. Just talk,” she said. Lori looked down at her hands, dirty and cut from hanging tin cans on wire all morning. She’d not been herself for a while now. In the old days, if any kid was bothering Carl she would have gone full momma bear, but she was coming to Shane for help instead. It made him feel good. “I can’t have Carl thinking he’s gonna lose me. Not after--not after he already lost his daddy.”

Shane winced, ever mindful of his own part in Rick’s death.

And he was dead. If not back in the hospital, then by now, certainly.

“Alright, yeah. I’ll talk to him.” The M-9 was reassembled by deft hands and slotted back into its holster. Shane started to head towards Ed’s tent when Lori grabbed his shoulder and smiled.

“Thank you, Shane. You keep me going.”

He smiled back at her, thoughts of his best friend now resting firmly in the Before, where they belonged.

“That’s what I’m here for, protecting you and Carl from scary sixth graders graders.”

She grinned and shoved him forward.

“Go. I’ll be helping Andrea and Amy with the laundry.”

Shane found Nicki sitting outside Ed and Carol Peletier’ tent, along with the other camp kids. Carol had taken it upon herself to teach all of them, or at least keep them distracted and out from under everyone’s hair. Either way, it was appreciated. Nicki was sitting cross legged and staring at his lap, where he was snapping a twig into smaller and smaller pieces. Carl was sitting well away from the boy, having put the Morales kids between them.

“Hey Carol, mind if I pull Nicki aside? I’ll have him back quick, just need to have a chat.”

At her nod and encouraging smile, Nicki got up and followed Shane towards the treeline. They were both silent as they walked, Nicki watching his feet and Shane watching him. He was kind of weird looking. Tall for his age, but like his limbs had grown before he had, giving him a gangly almost unwieldy look. His hair was a rat’s nest. It might have been well groomed at one point, but now, after at least three weeks without a cut (and Carol had said he wouldn’t let her near him with her clippers), it was a frizzy mess. Black curls got tangled and knotted, making him look like a walking bush. It was hard to tell what race the boy was. Hispanic, Middle Eastern, maybe even Jewish. He spoke English though, so it wasn’t really important.

They stopped walking as they approached the signal lines that had been put up that morning, still well within sight of the rest of the group. Shane squatted down so they were eye to eye, used to talking to Carl.

“So. Carl’s ma said that you were scaring him. Know anything about that?”

Nicki looked back at him, face contorting through a mix of emotions that were hard to read, before settling on resigned.

“I told him that’s not what I meant.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“... we’re all infected.”

Shane’s mouth went dry. These days, when someone mentioned an infection, they were only talking about one thing.

“Explain that to me.”

“The disease, it's not just in the bites. It’s in the air too.”

“Now listen, you can’t be saying stuff like that, scaring people--”

“There was a girl in a warehouse off the highway.” Something about the boy’s tone of voice made Shane cut himself off. He wasn’t used to getting interrupted by other people. “I was looking for food, and she was in there hanging from the rafters. She looked like a high schooler, and there was no blood on her anywhere. I looked. She’d hung herself, and below her was a note saying how she was sorry that she couldn’t protect someone named Ryan, and that she didn’t want to get bit.”

Shane didn’t have anything to say to that. He just pawed at his hair, trying to wrap his head around what the kid was saying.

“She wasn’t bloody Shane. She was scared of getting bit, not of turning. She was alive, and then she wasn’t, and then she came back. No bites, no scratch marks, just a broken neck. And she came back, Shane.”

“It’s in us. We all carry it.”

The strange, quiet boy looked at him, eye to eye.

“What the fuck.” For a moment, Shane thought the words were his own, but when he looked up, Amy was staring down at the two.

\---

“No seriously, what the fuck!”

The camp was in chaos. Amy was still screaming, telling anyone who would listen what Nicki had said.

Carol had taken the kids behind the RV, and Dale was trying to calm Amy down.

“If it’s in us, then what’s the fucking point,” Shane heard Jim mutter, standing next to Ed. They both looked in shock.

Miranda looked like she was praying, her eyes were closed at least. She might have just been in shock.

Nicki was standing right where Shane had left him. Watching them all.

“Let go of me Dale, you’re not my fucking dad!”

The bang sent the whole campsite into silence. It wasn’t a gunshot, but the sound of the back of Shane’s hatchet slamming against the RV was just as effective. To be honest, he’d wanted to pop one or two off, but he was always aware of how one misguided shot could echo off the quarry walls and draw every geek within earshot towards them.

“Are we gonna start acting like adults?” Shane asked, though there wasn’t really a question in his voice. He stared directly at Amy, who still had Dale’s shirt balled up in her fist. He’d grabbed her elbow to try and get her to calm down, but he’d let it go when she screamed at him. The old man’s face was… well, he looked put out. “Or are we gonna scream at each other till every dead’un in the hills comes looking for us.”

“They’ll find us anyway.”

Everyone looked at Nicki. Somehow, without Shane noticing, he’d walked into the middle of the group and was now gripping a hunting knife.

“What?”

“This is a bad place to camp, we’re too close to the city. The walkers are gonna run out food soon, then they’re gonna start flowing up the I-85 and directly towards us. We don’t have walls, and tin cans on strings fifteen feet from camp will give us a minute’s warning at most. That might be enough for one or two, but not a mob of them. Staying here is a death sentence.” The kid hadn’t made eye contact with anyone, but they all paid attention to him. This is the most any of the group had heard him speak. His plain and unworried voice jarred against what he was saying, and throughout his little speech, he was spinning the hunting knife against the pad of one of his index fingers. Finally, he looked up and stared at Shane. "The disease is in us. It's waiting for us to die of a broken neck, or a heart attack, or cancer, or whatever. However we go, we come back as those things. The only thing we can do is, keep on living until that happens. Camping out in a random clearing in the woods because the RV broke down here isn't how we stay alive."

And then Nicki walked out of the circle of people, still holding the knife.

The arguing started up again a minute later.


	2. Sophia and Dale

Sophia wasn't scared. The adults were yelling and fighting, but her Momma was there with her, and so were Carl, and Eliza, and Louis. The fighting wasn't like when Momma and Dad fought either, no one was hitting each other, or crying, and Sophia didn't feel like she had to hide.

Sophia wasn't scared. But she was glad her friends were with her.

"Yeah, Mama says that if no one comes to rescue us, she wants to go to Birmingham to live with our tía Christina and tío Dan. She’s in the army so she can protect us,” said Louis.

"What do tia and tio mean," asked Carl. He was sitting next to Sophia's Momma, picking dirt out of the treads of his shoes. They were all sitting on the other side of the camper, next to the road. Momma would look up every time the group's arguing spiked, but Sophia hadn't heard her Dad's voice yet so things were probably fine.

"Aunt and uncle," said Eliza. She was brushing her dolls' hair, a pretty thing whose cloth skin was cleaner than any of their clothes. "Papa wants to go there too, since there's less people."

“Would your aunt be able to protect all of us? Can we go with you?” Sophia asked. She’d heard the first bit of the fight, when Amy was yelling about how they were all infected. She was trying not to think about it, but maybe the army could help them get cured if they were?

Eliza shrugged, and then looked up behind Sophia. She turned around as well.

Standing there was Nicki. Nicki was weird. Weird, and kind of scary, but at least he wasn’t mean like Louis could be sometimes. He was taller than her, even though he was only in sixth grade and she was in seventh. Totally unfair. He was kind of ugly too. Messy hair, chubby stomach, and a pimply face. What a weirdo. 

“How was your talk with Shane, Nicki?” Her Momma asked. 

“... Carol, can I hug you?” By then everyone was looking at Nicki. He had his arms clasped around him, and he was staring at his feet. Sophia stared at his face, watching him bite at his lip. 

“Oh. Oh, of course, come here honey.” Momma sat up on her thighs and held her arms out for Nicki. Sophia watched as his eyes flicked around at her, then Carl, then Eliza and Lous, before going back to her Momma. Then he walked forward, slid down to his knees and sank into her arms. Momma ran a hand down his back, almost petting him, just like she did with Sophia. Nicki stuck his head in the crook of her neck and squeezed his eyes shut, hard. A rattling breath tore out of him, and Sophia realized he was trying not to cry. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Momma asked. Eliza moved over to their side, gently pushing Carl towards Louis. He didn’t seem too bothered by it, if anything he looked relieved.

“I hate it here. I hate it here,” she heard him say. “I hate being so young.”

“It’s okay Nicki. Don’t be sad,” said Eliza, mimicking Momma by rubbing Nicki’s back too. Sophia stood up, wondering what she should do. Before she could do anything though, Nicki pulled back and rubbed at his eyes.

“You’re right, I’m good. I’m good.” He smiled, but his eyes were red and puffy and he still looked stressed. “I’m sorry Ms. Carol. I’m just--I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Oh it’s okay honey, there’s no shame in being sad. You’re a very strong young man, do you know that?”

Sophia stepped lightly over towards her Momma. The boys had started whispering to themselves, and had turned their backs on the scene. Probably their way of giving Nicki privacy. No one spoke as Sophia walked over and the silence stretched, broken only by the sound of birds and the group still going at it. She touched her Momma’s soldier and shared a look with Eliza.

“Ms. Carol,” Nicki was sitting on his thighs now too, and Eliza was still petting him. Her Momma was watching the boy’s face, as he stared down at his lap. “You’re Christian, right? I saw you pray at dinner.”

“Yes,” she nodded, and Sophia settled back down next to her, “do you want to pray?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, and held out his hand. Her Momma grabbed it. Sophia grabbed her Momma’s hand as well, soft and cold. Eliza saw what was going on and completed the circle.

“Do you want me to start?”

“Sure,” was Nicki’s quiet reply, and Sophia closed her eyes.

“God, we thank you for keeping us safe, and for the food that Glenn brings back and the water from the quarry. We thank you that you sent your son Jesus to die for us and pay for our sins, and that when we die we will go to be with you. ” Sophia’s mother’s voice was small, like always, but Sophia had noticed something. When her Momma prayed, and this happened every time, there was not a bit of quiver or unsteadiness. Just a slow, quiet steadiness.

“God, thank you for keeping my Papa safe while he’s in the city,” said Eliza, and here Sophia peaked. The girl had her eyes squeezed shut, the doll hanging haphazardly in the crook of her arm. “And thank you for my Mama and brother being okay too.”

Sophia closed her eyes again, trying to think of something to say. Then, she had it.

“God, thank you for sending Shane and his family to get us on the road. Thank you for not letting us get hurt and for protecting the camp. Please, protect us from the disease.”

“God--” Nicki swallowed loudly, and Sophia didn’t have to open her eyes to know he was fighting back tears again. Eliza’s hand was clammy. “God, we thank you for all your blessings. We--I can’t do this without you Lord. I can’t, I just can’t. I need you. Be our strength and our rock Lord. I don’t know what your plan is, I don’t even know if there is one. I don’t know what I’m doing here, God. I just, I need your help--I need you.”

Every other word was marked by wet and vulnerable tones as Nicki prayed. Sophia squeezed her Momma’s hand. She squeezed back.

“Mom, Dad, if you can hear me. Pray for me now, pray for all of us. I--I miss you, I miss you so much. I miss everyone. It hurts like a wound. Please. Please, God, watch over those who have passed on. Let them get the peace they didn’t find on Earth with you Lord. And if anyone can hear me, send us help however you can. We need it.”

Nicki said something more, but it was too quiet to hear. She felt him drop her Momma’s and Eliza’s arm, so she opened her eyes. 

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” She watched curiously as both he and Eliza crossed themselves. She knew some Christians did that, but she’d never seen it before in real life.

“I think your parents heard you Nicki. I’m so sorry for what the last couple months have put you through, no boy your age should have to deal with that.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t.”

They stayed seated for a long moment after that. The group sounded like they were done arguing, or shouting at least, so the birds were much more audible. And so too, in the distance, was an approaching car alarm.

\---

“I don’t know, the sound was echoing all over the hills. Would be hard for them to pinpoint,” Dale said, though his spirit wasn’t really in it. He’d seen smaller mistakes than this turn into massacres on the way out of Atlanta. 

Shane gave Dale a hard look, but he just put up one hand in defense.

“I’m not arguing, I’m just saying,” he said, keeping his hunting rifle secure on his shoulder. 

“I’m not arguing either. But this means we need to find a secure spot all the sooner.” Dale chose not to start that argument up again. It had been going on for long enough.

“Is she alright? Is Andrea okay, Glenn?” Amy was inconsolable, face still puffy from crying at Nicki’s ‘revelation.’ Dale had his doubts about trusting the witness testimony of a middle schooler, but after the way she pushed back against him earlier, he had kept his peace. 

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Glenn said, “We’re all good, they’re coming up behind me.”

True to his word, a moving van pulled up behind the mountain road, going slowly. They all waited nervously as despite Glenn’s reassurances, there’d been so much death in the past two months that they needed to confirm things with their own eyes. The first person to hop out of the van was Morales.

“Papa!”

“You’re back!”

Dale allowed himself a small smile, watching the man greet his two kids. 

“Carlos, I was so worried, thank God you’re back,” said Miranda.

“Andrea!”

“Amy!”

The sisters almost slammed into each other, somewhere in the mid point between laughing and crying.

“You are a sight for sore eyes,” Dale told Morales after he put his children down, “we were really starting to get worried about you folks.”

“What kept y’all out so long, anyway. Glenn said it was gonna be in and out,” said Shane. His voice was stern, and privately Dale agreed. Glenn had said they’d be back by one, and it was almost sundown now.

“We got into some trouble at the department store, but this cowboy got us out,” Glenn said.

“Cowboy?”

“Yeah,” said Morales, grinning, “Hey, helicopter boy! Come say hello to everyone.”

If Dale had thought Morales’ reunion with his family was touching, then watching Carl run up to a father he had thought dead (or worse) nearly brought a tear to his eye.

\---

Later that night, Dale was sat down on a log next to Merle. He’d been blessedly quiet all night long, just munching on his grilled fish and a can of beans. Listening to the conversation. It was odd coming from the hillbilly, who usually liked to be the center of attention. He looked a bit rough. Dale would ask how he’d gotten his wrist rubbed raw, but honestly, he just didn’t want to talk to the man.

Rick started talking about what waking up halfway through the apocalypse had felt like, when Dale felt a soft tap on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Hey, Dale?” It was Nicki, wearing his denim jacket with the duct tape on the sleeves. What a boy, to do something like that and almost die of heatstroke. Trading one piece of common sense for another. “Can we talk in private for a sec?”

“Sure son,” the old man said, setting aside his empty plate. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as he stood up, spring nights in Georgia could get chilly, especially when you were up in the hills like they were. “Let’s go sit in the RV for a bit.”

The RV was quiet and dark, the only light a little reading lamp that Dale had rigged up above the bed. Nicki hopped up on the bed and crossed his legs, while Dale took a seat at the one chair in the camper. 

“So, what’s on your mind?”

“Dale, you know how… unstable, I guess, this group is. Right?” The boy’s voice was quiet, but practiced. “I mean, it’s not like most of us knew each other before the disease. We banded together because we had no one else, no other choice. We’ve got people from the projects and the country and the suburbs all rubbing elbows, while the world dies around them. Problems are gonna come up. Things that could have been easily solved or ignored just a couple months ago are gonna be killers now.”

Dale had been a company man for near thirty years, he knew when someone was giving him a pitch. It was just surreal hearing an eleven year old try to sell him something.

“And right now, I see two problems in the group, that aren’t on the same level as how unsafe we are here, but could get people killed just as easy.”

Nicki paused, obviously waiting for Dale to comment. He decided to humor the boy.

“And what are those?”

“The first one is this: Shane and Lori were having sex in the woods this morning, and now Lori’s husband is back.”

“The second issue, is the fact that Sophia’s daddy beats her and her mom.”

And for once, Dale couldn’t think of anything to say.


	3. Jacqui

Jacqui wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel at this point. The world was so fucked, and there really wasn’t any hope for it getting better. The last two months had been just miserable. Watching refuge after refuge fall. First her apartment block had been overrun, then her brother’s neighborhood in the suburbs, then even the quarantine camp in Atlanta. Watching people die, over and over. Running, finding a new spot to settle down and wait it out, then watching it fall apart.

The first time, she’d dealt with it. She wasn’t close to her neighbors. The second time was hard, her brother’s fiance had gotten separated from them and they never found her. But then, after just four days at the refugee center she had watched her brother die, choking on his own blood. She just didn’t know what to do with that.

Jacqui was tired. Tired on a spiritual level, on a soul level. It was hard to get up in the mornings sometimes. Especially this morning.

Because the night before, she’d learned that the disease that killed her brother--killed the world--was in her. Waiting to reanimate her corpse and puppet it like a hungry and wild marionette. Some people grow up not trusting their body, feeling too big and too strong to be comfortable. They constantly hold the tension of their unused potential for destruction. Jacqui had never felt that weight, but she felt it now.

Another thing to wear her down. Another thing to make waking up a trial.

Another thing for her to fucking deal with.

That is, if it was even true. Apparently, this information had come to light after Nicki, a quiet kid who Glenn had found a while back, shared some story about a girl who hadn’t died from the bite but had still come back. Getting any details from Shane was like pulling teeth, but Amy had heard some of it and he would grudgingly confirm or correct what she said.

So the story got told around the campfire, after the reunions between the supply runners and the rest were done.

At least watching Lori and Carl reunite with Rick had been a good moment. One of the few since this all started.

She shifted the basket of laundry on her hip as she walked. To those around her, the normally joking woman looked oddly somber. As she went from tent to tent collecting dirty clothes, people noticed how her eyebrows scrunched together, drawing her angular face into a harsh and harrowed look. Not many stopped to talk.

The sun was starting to rise above the treeline when Jacqui set the basket next to the main fire pit and sat down on a log. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose trying to ward off the desire to just throw the laundry in the ashes and go back to her tent.

Scritch. Scritch.

The noise was quiet, and it took Jacqui a moment to consciously recognize it.

Scritch. Scritch-scritch.

She opened her eyes and looked to her right. There was Nicki, sitting cross legged on a stump, with a branch that had to be as long as he was. He had a large hunting knife, and was slowly slicing the bark off.

Scritch. Scritch.

He looked so focused as he worked, his small hands just barely able to grip the knife. He managed it well though, as she watched him pull off a strip of bark at least a foot long, leaving bar white wood beneath. Her eyes darted up and down the length of it, catching several spots where knots had been cut off and smoothed down.

“Making yourself a walking stick, Nicki?” She asked, not letting any of her stress show in her voice. The boy perked up from his project, curls bobbing with his head. She wished she had some of her shea butter, she would help him get that frizz under control. Lord, she wished she had some for herself. The relaxer she had used was wearing off, and if there was one positive to the end of the world, it was that she didn’t have to keep up a “professional appearance.” Fucking Jeremy. She had a dark moment where she wondered if her old boss was dead. Probably not. He was enough of a rat to squirm out of the city.

“No,” said Nicki, breaking her out of her thoughts, “I mean, it could be one. But no.” She shook her head and refocused on the conversation. He had taken the pole from off his lap and was holding it straight up and down in front of him. She was right. If he were to stand up, the thing would probably have six inches on him.

“Oh no? So what’s it gonna be then?”

“I’ll show you.” With that, he hopped up and walked over to her, letting the pole rest on his shoulder. He showed her the end of it where a line was marked in sharpie. It ran down the center for about six inches before jerking out to the side.

“I’m gonna cut off that little wedge of wood. Then, this,” and he gestured with his knife, “is gonna get duct taped there and wrapped in coiled rope and I’ll have a spear for walkers. Hopefully at least.”

Jacqui stared at him, and then at the pole, and then back at him. How on earth?

“What?” He asked.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“I-uh. I watched a lot of YouTube videos I guess. I think it’ll work, at least it’s better than nothing,” he said.

“Baby, I think you’re too young to be playing with knives like this. Where’d you get that anyway?” Jacqui shook her head, lost by this conversation.

“I picked it up on the road,” he said, but now that she really looked at it, it looked familiar.

“Isn’t that Ed’s knife?” She asked, but she already knew it was. He’d been twirling it around the day before she left on the supply run, talking about how he won it from one of his poker buddies.

“... yeah, it is. I need it though, I don’t have anything to protect myself with.”

Her first instinct here was to just take him over to Ed and have him apologize and give the knife back. But the more she thought about it, that seemed like a bad idea. The day before the supply run, Carol had come out of her tent with a fat purple bruise on her wrist that she dodged questions about. Jacqui knew a wife-beater when she saw one, especially with the way he talked to her and the other women at the camp. She was planning to confront him about it soon, when she had people there with her watching. Bringing Nicki over to him alone would be like bringing a lamb to the slaughter.

Lord, she was tired.

“Okay, keep the damn thing. Just don’t let him see you with it,” she said. “But you’re not gonna get hurt. You’ve got all these people in camp looking out for you. Me, Shane, Dale. Have you met Ms. Eleanor?”

He shook her head.

“She’s the black lady with the light brown hair, the one who had the idea to set up the tin can lines. She used to be a hunting guide. That makes three hunters, two sheriffs, and a bunch of normal people who all wanna keep you safe,” she said, gesturing towards where the woman was sitting in front of her tent, reading a book. They made eye contact and Eleanor waved. Jacqui waved back, and so did Nicki after a second. “You don’t gotta worry.”

He looked at her for a minute, palming the knife in his hand. She still hadn’t gotten up from the log so they were eye to eye.

“Ms. Jacqui, do you know where Carl and Sophia are?”

She blinked at that. Not the response she was expecting.

“Yeah, I saw them while I was walking around this morning. Do you want to go play with them?”

Nicki palmed his knife one more time, before slipping it back onto his belt. Then he picked up his pole and smiled. It wasn’t an easy smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yeah. Let’s go find them.”

\---

Nicki had the pole clutched in his hands, like he was expecting to have to use it at any second. Jacqui didn’t really notice. It was just another disconcerting thing about the boy. He didn’t really act like any kids she had ever known, and she’d halfway raised some of her nieces and nephews. He was too mature for one, but trauma makes a kid grow up fast. No, the real thing is the way he looked at people. He watched their mouths. Not just when they were talking. When they were sitting around the campfire, or busy working, he would be on the sidelines. Watching their mouths.

One more thing she didn’t know what to do with.

She led him towards the clearing near the edge of the camp, where she’d seen the two kids playing some game. It looked like they were trying to race to see who could climb a tree the fastest. They were still at it when the two of them got to the clearing, and Nicki walked over to join in. She could tell they weren’t exactly enthused by the idea, but he just kind of slid into the game anyways. Before he started scrambling up and down the twisted branches though, he walked over to her. He was holding out the pole.

“Watch us, Ms. Jacqui?”

“Er, yeah. ‘Course baby.”

And then he was off, bolting up the tree like he was born to it. He was faster than the other two, for sure. But once he got to the top, he just stayed there swinging his legs back and forth on a branch that was a bit too small for Jacqui to be comfortable.

She didn’t really question this situation. The whole camp took part in watching the kids when their parents were busy. Especially when Nicki was brought in, who didn’t have anyone specifically looking out for him. They all kept an eye on him when they could though, and she’d had several talks with Carol about how he was doing. Lord, what it must be like, to be that age and to lose your parents like that.

She was so tired.

Jacqui watched the kids for a good twenty minutes, resting her head on the pole and appreciating how smooth Nicki had gotten it with just a knife. Only a few patches of bark around the knots.

And then behind her was a thump. She turned her head around, but the bushes were high and blocked her view. She started edging around to see if something was moving back there, trying to keep the kids in her peripheral vision at least. Nicki had stopped swinging his legs. She finally came around the edge of the bush enough to see into the woods behind it. There, just before the treeline got thick again, was a fallen deer. Two arrows stuck out of its flank and one was in its neck. For a moment she thought it was dead, but then a rattling gasp tore out of it, and she realized it must have just now fallen. She stared enraptured, not noticing as Carl walked up behind her to see what was going on.

The only visible blood was dripping down from around the arrow in the deer's neck. It didn’t glisten, or shimmer. It was matte. And it dripped slow. Its ears were twitching wildly, but no part of its lower body was moving. It looked for all the world like it was waiting to die.

The scene was so macabre that the geek who stumbled into the clearing took a minute to register. It just fit in so well. Carl reacted first.

“Momma!” Jacqui looked down at him, and back at the corpse. It had been heading for the deer, but she saw the moment it changed directions. She pulled Carl behind her.

“Help." Her first attempt to screamed limped out of her as a whisper. "Somebody help!"

Her second had all her power and fear behind it, and it got the geek to speed up. She was about to run when she realized she was still holding Nicki’s pole. In that moment, that nanosecond of consideration, fight took over from flight, and she brandished it like a baseball bat. The thing stumbled into her reach, rotting and matted hair swinging like vines. She took a swing, and cracked it on the side of the head.

She’d been expecting--hoping--that it would smash open like an old Jack-o-Lantern, but the thing just lurched back a step before coming for her again.

She took another swing, but her eyes closed at the last second. She felt it as the pole slammed into its shoulder instead of its head. This time it didn’t even stumble. Now it was less than two feet away from her.

From behind came the sound of rushing steps, and then suddenly Nicki was leaping at the walker. Jacqui just had time to blink before he had flown past it, tumbling for a few feet. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. The jacket was on the geek’s face. Its arms flailed for a moment, before tearing at its face to try and rid itself of the cloth. Nicki was up again, running back towards her. He grabbed Carl’s hand as he ran, and she turned to go with them.

Men ran past her. She tossed the pole to Jim as he raced by. They were shouting. She knelt down with Nicki and hugged him close. Lori was kissing Carl’s face. Nicki was silent. And Jacqui was so, so tired.


	4. Carl and Jim

The adults were arguing again. Just like yesterday’s ‘debate’, it was about leaving the camp, except now it was about the destination, instead of whether to leave at all. The walker had shown that it wasn’t safe here anymore. Carl’s dad was saying they should go to the CDC, but Shane wanted to make for Fort Benning and get the Army to help them. Or at least get their stuff. People were choosing sides, getting loud, and getting angry.

It was so useless. Carl hated watching them all fight like kids, it made him nervous and like he needed to be somewhere else. So he slipped away from his mom. It wasn’t hard, he just had to wait for her to get involved in the argument and she wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. He walked over to his tent and sat down in the dirt. His eyes were scratchy.

He sat there for a few minutes, occasionally rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hand, before a shadow passed over his face.

“You okay?”

Carl looked up and saw Nicki standing there looking at him. Crud. He didn’t want to talk to him, he was weird. He had cried. Nicki had cried, and he hadn’t. His eyes were just scratchy.

“Go away.”

Of course, he didn’t go away. No, he sat down right in front of him, brown eyes locked on gray. They stared at each other for a minute, Carl halfway glaring at him and Nicki just studying him.

“Why didn’t you run when you saw the walker?” The other boy asked suddenly. Carl didn’t know what to say, so he just blurted out the first thing he thought of.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I did,” Nicki snorted, “I just grabbed you first.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Carl grabbed a stick off the ground and flicked it at him. Nicki laughed, and he realized that was probably the first time he’d ever heard the other boy do more than snort. He was always so serious.

“Sorry. I just didn’t want you or Jacqui to get hurt, and I figured it was slow enough I could distract it and get the fuck out of there.”

Carl blinked, before nodding.

“Yeah, it, uh, it was pretty fucking scary, huh?” He asked, unsure of himself.

“Scary,” Nicki nodded, “and really sad.”

“How was it sad?”

Nicki looked at him for a long moment. Carl eventually dropped his gaze, picking at the grass at his feet.

“Hey,” the other boy eventually said, “do you want to help me with something?”

\---

“Why are we doing this?” Asked Eliza, holding a shovel that was almost as tall as she was.

“Because when I die, I would want someone to do this for me.”

Carl had a shovel of his own, dragging limply behind him. He wasn’t paying attention to it. He was paying attention to the decapitated body fifteen feet away from him, one arrow still embedded in it’s eye.

He, Nicki, and Eliza had grabbed shovels: one from Jim, one from Dale, and one from the back of the truck the supply runners had come back with. They had walked away from the camp to where he and Sophia had been playing just an hour earlier. It seemed like it had been a week. The sun came through the branches of the trees above them, not yet as hot as it would be once it had time to beat down on the earth. Birds sang from invisible perches, and the smell of death hung in the air.

“This used to be a person. He had a name, a job, a family. He didn’t deserve this,” Nicki said.

“He tried to kill us.” The words spilled from Carl’s lips before he got a hold of them.

“Yeah, he did. So did my mom after she turned.” Nicki’s voice was soft but steady as he spoke, like he was talking about the weather. “They aren’t responsible for what they do after they come back. This guy was just like Rick, or Mr. Morales. Everyone deserves respect, even the dead. Especially the dead.”

“Fine,” said Eliza, taking out a tee shirt and wrapping it around her face, “but I don’t have to smell him to respect him.”

Carl watched her heft her shovel and start digging into the soft Georgian earth. She placed herself so her back was to the body, and he did the same. Nicki came around, head up, and started working opposite from them. His eyes didn’t stray from somewhere over Carl’s shoulder, and he knew exactly what the other boy was looking at.

They spoke quietly as they got used to the repetitive motions of driving their tools into the dirt, piling it all to one side. The shovels were honestly too big for them, but they made it work. For the first few inches at least. Then, they started butting up against rocks too big to shovel. Everytime that bone rattling clang of metal on stone rang out, they would have to pause and dig around the rock with their hands until they could wiggle it out. Then they’d lift it up and put it to one side. The work showed. Their foreheads were getting sweaty, their fingers were raw and dirty, and Carl at least could tell he was going to get a blister on his thumb from how it was stinging. There was a dollop of skin, paler than the palm around it, that had lifted up from the muscle below.

“Yeah,” he grunted, “I’m done.”

He let the shovel fall out of his hands. He didn’t know how long they’d been working, but they didn’t have much to show for it. Just a pile of rocks and more of an indent than a hole.

The walker had been big. This wasn’t enough.

And he was tired of working.

Carl started walking away, ignoring how Eliza was glaring at him, and how Nicki still hadn’t taken his eyes off of--it didn’t matter. He was done.

“Carl, you gonna come back?”

The question stopped him. He looked back and Nicki wasn’t staring into the distance anymore. He was leaning up against his shovel, wiping his hands against his shirt.

“No, I’m tired, and hungry, and my hands hurt. I don’t wanna do this anymore,” he said before walking away.

He hadn’t walked more than ten paces before he felt two people come up behind him. Eliza and Nicki were walking with him. Eliza was dragging her shovel behind her, and biting at her fingernails to get the dirt out from under them. Nicki had his shovel and Carl’s hoisted up on his shoulders, and was hanging his arms on the poles to keep them steady. For an absurd moment, he reminded Carl of a German milkmaid.

“A break sounds good. I’m hungry too.”

Carl looked at him and shrugged.

The three of them talked as they made their way back to the camp.

\---

Jim Rothenburg was a big man with a quiet spirit. He didn’t take up much space in a room, and the space he did take was mostly vertical. When he spoke it was as soft as old leather and coached in small smiles. You could easily forget he was standing there, until you turned around and his Adam’s apple was staring you in the eye. A lot of people forgot about Jim. He just never seemed as important as the people around him.

Jim looked over the group of kids as they walked back into the clearing. He knew what they were doing back there, even lent that boy Nicki his shovel for it. He figured anything to keep the kids occupied while plans were being made was fine, and he made sure to keep and eye on them through the bushes. Not like he had much to say on the matter of going to the CDC vs. that Army base. It was all the same to him.

He was too tired to really engage with it anyway. Bad dreams.

Not the worst night of sleep he’s ever had though.

The kids looked sweaty and dirty. They stopped in surprise as they got back into camp. It was a hive of activity, as people tore down tents, packed bags, and prepped the cars for moving out.

Nicki ran up to him, having made eye contact through the hubbub.

“That shovel workin’ well for ya?” Jim asked, eyeing him up and down. The boy blinked, looking like he’d been about to say something.

“Uh, yeah, thanks again for letting me use it. What’s going on though?”

“We’re packin’ up,” he shrugged, standing up from where he’d been leaning against the RV. “We’re going to go check out the CDC, see if there’s anyone left there who can help us.”

“Fuck,” Nicki muttered, and Jim quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “Okay, did they say how long till we’re leaving?”

“They wanna be on the road after lunch. Y’all finished what you needed to?” Out of the corner of his eye, Jim noticed Lori grab her son’s shoulders and talk to him in hushed tones. The Morales girl hung beside him, clutching her shovel and looking around nervously.

“No, not really. Could you hold these for a second?” Nicki swung his tools off his shoulders and handed them to him, before running off to talk to his friends.

Jim sighed. Christ. That boy.

He stood there for a few minutes, staring up into the sky, listening to the noises of the camp and the forest. People talking, plastic tents crinkling as they got torn down. Birds chirping, and wind whistling over the hills. He closed his eyes, and tried not to think about Liberty Plaza.

“Okay, they’re gonna help their parents clean up, but I’m gonna try and get it done before we leave. Can I keep your shovel for a bit longer?”

Jim blinked his eyes open and looked down at the boy. He was standing there, not making eye contact, head on a swivel looking at the camp. His hands were held up close to his chest, wringing themselves out. The cracks of his hands were filled with dirt. Grave dirt.

Jim sighed.

“Come on boy. Let’s go dig a hole,” he said, and swung a shovel up onto his shoulders, “and maybe we can get back for some fish before headin’ out.”


	5. Dale and Eleanor

Dale walked over to the trash bin and threw away the stick he'd been using as a skewer for his fish. The girls, Amy and Andrea, had caught them in the quarry lake that morning, and he and Eleanor had cooked them over the fire, seasoning them with salt and pepper, and some wild rosemary. The smell had been amazing, savory and familiar. So many of their meals were out of a box or a can that cooked fish was a luxury.

Dale looked around the camp. All the cars had been packed with supplies, rolled up tents, and all the gear that the group had collected over the past couple of weeks. They’d done their best to clean as they packed, but the signs of habitation were obvious. Garbage still littered the area, trodden on plants marked where people had walked enough to create paths, and half a dozen scorched bits of ground pointed to old fires. He’d moved out of a dozen homes during his life, and this felt almost like another moving day. Just not one he was sure was the best idea.

“Okay, y’all, it’s time to move out,” Shane was saying as he walked back over to the group. “We’ve got thirty three people and only eight vehicles, so it’s gonna be a tight fit.”

“We’ve got five guns, and a crossbow,” said Rick, walking up behind Shane and putting a hand on his shoulder. Shane shot Rick a look, but didn’t comment on the interruption, “I want one weapon in each vehicle. The two without are gonna drive in the middle of the convoy.”

“The moving truck’s gonna go first, with Glenn driving and me riding shotgun with my, ah, shotgun,” Shane said, holding the matte black weapon up on his shoulder. “We’ve got room for eight or ten people in the back, and everyone back there needs to have a knife, a handaxe, some kind of weapon. If we get stopped by a pack of these suckers, and we can’t escape, you’re gonna need to get out and fight them to protect the RV. At least until the others with weapons can come out and take care of them.”

“Do you think that’s gonna be necessary?” Dale asked, fingering the strap of his hunting rifle. He still hadn’t been sold on the need to get out of the camp so quickly, but the idea of people fighting those things with knives and wood splitters was crazy. “Maybe we should try to find more weapons before we bug out, not just go off half-cocked.”

“While we’re looking though, this camp ain’t gonna have a chance of surviving a bunch of walkers moving through,” said T-Dog. He was sitting on a stump of wooden, still eating his meal. Even his dark skin was damp with sweat in the noonday sun, and Dale was thankful that if nothing else, most of the work had been done this morning.

“T-Dog is right. We already had this conversation Dale, and voted on leaving. You’re just wasting time at this point.” Shane looked at him, and Dale held up a hand.

“Fine, fine. Just saying it’d be nice to have a few more guns.”

“Look, this is just in case we get trapped, which I don’t see happening,” said Rick. For a moment, Dale thought he looked guilty about something, but the moment passed. “The truck can blow through one or two of those things, no issue. That’s why you’re gonna be right behind us, since you said the engine on that camper’s getting up in years. You and the kids are gonna be safe. Protecting them is our top priority.”

Dale sighed. He’d been doing a lot of that in the last day or two. He didn’t like this idea, for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is that it made him responsible for the camp kids. His RV wasn’t that big, but it would fit him and Carol in the front, and Sophia, Nicki, and Morales’ kids in the back. Lori and Eleanor were also gonna be in the back, watching the kids, which would make for a cramped ride.

“Right. I’ll agree with that at least,” he said, and let it go. If this is what the group wanted to do, he’d go along with it. Not like he could just take his camper and leave. “Why don’t the kids come with me and get situated, let the rest of you get ready to go.”

Nicki was the first one to stand up, and the last one in the door.

\---

Dale let up on the horn after a couple seconds, then looked over at Carol. They were sitting in the front of the RV, with the sliding door shut behind them. It was thin plywood, but with the engine running and people talking in the back, no one would be able to hear them, which was important for the conversation he wanted to have. He didn’t relish it.

“Ready to finally get out of the woods?” She asked, smiling at him, eyes crinkling at the corners. It was hard to tell her age, but her hair was gray so he’d guess forties at least. He wondered why she’d had it cut so short, he knew it had been before the infection took over. He didn’t want to ask.

“Suppose I am. I still think we should have taken a day or two to get ready, but if I’m being honest, I won’t miss the quarry,” he said, listening to the truck behind him honk its horn.

“I just hope the next place we go has a washing machine,” Carol said, still smiling. It wasn’t a happy expression though, it had an odd sort of heftiness to it, like the corners of her mouth were a chore to lift up. It was the sort of smile Dale wore the first few months after Irma passed. He didn’t like it on Carol.

“About that, I really appreciate you and Jacqui doing the laundry for everyone. It was a simple thing, but it meant a lot,” he said, trying to figure out how he was going to approach what he really wanted to talk about. The cars behind them kept on honking, and once Dale had counted eight he shifted into drive and waited for Glenn to get going.

“I’ll tell Jacqui you said that Dale, thank you.”

“Now, Carol,” he said, finally driving forward as the moving van started down the gravel road, “I had something else I wanted to say.”

He saw her flick her eyes at him before looking at the road again.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been worried about you,” it was only because he was paying attention that he saw the way she stiffened, the way that her fingers which had been tapping on the door handle stilled and then laid flat. “When you first got here, you had a split lip. I figured it was just something that happened on the road, but Shane said he’d been with you a few days before that, and he had no idea where you got it. It wasn’t there when you first met. Then there’s the bruises on your arms.”

Until that moment, Dale hadn’t been sure. He was getting this idea from Nicki, who’d gotten it from Sophia, a twelve year old girl who might not have all the facts. But the fear that flashed behind Carol’s eyes for just a second, and the way she pulled her sleeves down to cover her wrists. And yeah. He knew.

“Oh, I’m just not used to camping like this. I’m a klutz at the best of times, and it's worse when I’m not surrounded by carpet,” she said, laughing, “I tripped on the way to a bush to pee in the morning, and smashed my face on a rock.”

Dale was silent for a moment, navigating the curving road around the quarry lake. He had to squint as the sunlight reflected off the bare rock and the bright blue water. The cab was quiet enough for him to hear someone talking in the back, just the soft murmuring of either Lori or Eleanor. He couldn’t make out any words.

“I won’t push you on this right now Carol. But I want you to know that if there’s some trouble between you and Ed, I’m here for you.” His hands were tight on the steering wheel, and not just because he was worried about the dropoff to their left. “Any time you want to talk.”

“Dale, it’s fine, honestly. He’s a bit prickly, but he’s really a sweetheart once you get to know him,” she said. Her voice was quiet, and she sat stock still in her seat, staring at the road. He watched the road too, aware of the precipice they were driving by, but still watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“Okay Carol. Like I said, I’m always open to talk. I just need to know one thing,” he paused here. He didn’t want to ask this question. He didn’t want to open this can of worms, not now with so many other things going on. But it was important.

“Carol, has he ever touched Sophia?”

\---

Eleanor was an old woman, but not an elderly woman, as she liked to say. Seventy one years on this Earth, and not once had she pissed in a bedcan, stuck a needle in her finger, or even thought about going to a brunch. Sure, her hair was crazier than her mother’s ever had been at her age, and she’d put on a few pounds since retiring, but it was the end of the fucking world. Could she live?

Eleanor wasn’t a talkative woman. She didn’t feel like these people needed to know too much about her. She was more than satisfied just helping to cook, watching the fires, and minding her damn business. So the fact that this child was asking so many questions was starting to get to her.

“Then when the refugee center fell, how did you get out of the city?”

She looked around the cabin. The boy who was asking the question was a little Mexican kid with curls named Nicki. Not related to the other other kids, just another orphan (and she didn’t like how many of those she had met in the past two months).They were both sitting at the table, his big brown eyes locked onto her, waiting for an answer. Well, he could wait. Eliza and… Louis? Were both sitting on the bed, cross legged and also watching her. She glanced over to the other side of the small RV and sure enough, Lori was sitting there with her son in her lap, the both of them watching her.

She bit back a groan.

“Story time it is then,” she said, licking her lips. Always so damn dry nowadays, “I’m only telling it once though.”

“Wait, hold on then,” Nicki said and got up from the chair. He scooted around the edge of the table and moved to the back of the cabin. He pulled open the little cabinet and took out a small satchel. Out from there, he pulled a pen and notebook. They all watched as he scurried back to his seat and flipped the thing open. He noticed them staring.  
“What? If you’re only gonna tell it once, I wanna write it down.”

“Why?” She was surprised not by Eliza’s question, but by the fact that she hadn’t asked it first.

“Stories are important.” …ok chile, someone wants to be all professional.

“Well alright then--” she tried to start.

“Oh, first, what’s your last name?” The boy had written down her first name at the top of the page, and spelled it right too.

“...Thompson,” she said. He scrawled that as well and looked back up at her expectantly.

“Okay, you can go, sorry.” She shook her hand.

“I won’t tell anyone anything if you keep interrupting like that. Anyway,” here she paused to collect her thoughts, “Getting out of the city wasn’t the big issue. It was getting out of the damn refugee center itself.”

“I got to Georgia Stadium on, eh. Well let me see. It would have been around the ninth or tenth of May. It was a dumbshit place to put us all if you ask me, but at the time I was just relieved to have some men with guns in between me and the rest of the city. The plaza was big, maybe two or so acres of space, and then the two motels on the side of it were being used too. There were thousands of people there though, from all across the state. I heard one of the workers say they were getting upwards of a thousand new people every day. The stadium was built to take a shit ton more than that, but only for a couple hours in a seated position, see. There was no room for that many people to spread out and live, not like they need too.”

“Me and a bunch of other folks ended up sprawling out from the tents down on the turf into the seating areas. Sleeping on the concrete or spread out across three seats. The people who got there early thought they were lucky.”

“They weren’t.”

Eleanor stopped, the words catching her throat, and she closed her eyes. One deep breath. Two. Then she continued, ignoring the scritching of Nicki’s pen and the enraptured gazes of the other passengers.

“I woke up Lord knows how early to shouting. At first, I thought it was just those assholes a few rows down from me getting drunk and fighting again, but then I realized it was coming from further away. Further down. I sat up in my sleeping bag, trying to see what was going on. They’d set up some lights around the stadium, but the generators were shit and always going down, so I couldn’t see what was going on. Just a lot of little flashlight beams turning on and off. It just looked like a chaotic jumble, like the field always did, even in the day. Until one of those lights went still, and I could just make out what it was shining on. It was far away, but there’s no mistaking that walk. YOu all know it, that stutter step they do, as they look for the next thing to chase.”

“They’d gotten in somehow, was what I thought. Now I realize, all it would have taken was one fucker offing themself or having a heart attack. With how close everyone down there was packed, one was all it would have took. I’d been there a week.”

“I started packing. I didn’t have a lot on me, so I was quick. I didn’t even bother putting clothes on, I just threw on my hiking boots and walked out of there in my night gown.”

She sighed, and this time she didn’t bother looking around.

“Or I tried to at least. It sounds so simple, just walk out, but the stands and the halls were packed with people with the same idea. We had no idea where the things were coming from, it sounded like they were everywhere the way the screaming was bouncing off the walls. It didn’t help that we just had phone lights and flashlights to go off of. I moved with the crowd, and I thank God I never tripped, because I’m sure they would have trampled me.”

“I went past a door to the stairs from above, and I saw this little girl, maybe twenty. Big blue eyes and pretty blonde hair. She had her face pushed up against the window, and for a second I thought she was one of them, before she got ripped away from the glass. I saw an older man chewing on her neck, just taking out a fat clump. I don’t know if she saw me. No. I know. She saw me, we made eye contact, Lord.”

She licked her lips again and tasted something salty. A shaking hand brushed her face and she realized she was crying.

“Ms. Eleanor, you don’t have too-”

“No,” she said firmly, eyes darting towards Nicki. “You asked, and I’m gonna tell you. I’m almost done anyway.”

“Getting out of the stadium was mostly a lot of math. Is this group big enough that if they get attacked I can run while those things are distracted? Can I make it down to that hotdog restaurant across the way before those noises get closer? How many bullets do I have left, that was the big one. Eventually though, I did it. I got out through a loading dock by the food court area, because I knew the main entrance would be packed. By the time I got out of there, my boots were covered in blood and the sun was rising. I saw people gathering together in the parking lot. I don’t think I was in my right mind, to be perfectly honest with y’all. I needed to get away from the stadium, even if it meant going out into the city.”

“I guess I made the right choice though, because two hours later, three Predator drones did a flyby and bombed the stadium to the ground. God knows how many people were still alive inside.”

Eleanor stopped talking and leaned back against the wall. Her eyes closed, and she tracked the feeling of a tear rolling down her cheek. It felt… good, to say all that, she supposed. Not like it hadn’t been playing on the back of her eyelids for the past month.

The cabin was silent for a few minutes, save for the scritching of Nicki’s pen. She took the time to pull herself together, and was just about to stand up to go use the tiny bathroom.

She didn’t get the chance. The RV stopped.


	6. Chapter 6

“I told you that hose wasn’t gonna last,” Dale was saying, as him and Jim peered into the steaming front hood of the RV. Shane shook his head, annoyed at the hold up. He peered around the bit of country road they’d stopped at. Calm and quiet now, but ready to turn into a freakshow at any moment. Just like the rest of the world. He remembered driving down this road on the way out of Atlanta with Lori and Carol and the kids. And Ed. “It was already more duct tape than hose, and I’m all out of duct tape.”

“Well, we can’t give you the van’s, it's carrying a quarter of our people,” said Rick, shaking his head.

“Yo Rick, you wanna watch these folks while I go try and find a fix?” Shane asked, shouldering his shotgun and moving up to the others. “There’s a gas station a couple miles up the road, I’ll drive up ahead and see if they have anything.”

“I’ll go with you,” said T-Dog, “back you up.” Shane nodded at him. Rick turned back to Dale to talk, and Shane took that as his cue to go.

“Hey, I’m coming too.” Shane looked up to see who had said that, but from the voice--not to mention the accent--he already knew. “Y’all bitches gonna need more than just the two a’ya if them geeks show up.”

Merle Dixon was smirking, hand on his belt next to a large hunting knife. Shane resisted the urge to glare at the man. RIck had told how he’d gone trigger happy on the roof of the department store, and it was taking everything he had not to just leave him and his brother behind. He was sticky with sweat, and stank of cigarette smoke. Christ knows where he was getting them.

“That’s fine Dixon. You go on and stay behind,” he said, gripping the butt of his weapon. The two of them stared at each other for a minute, stone faced stoic against smirking sicko, before T-Dog broke in.

“Hey, I’m not gonna turn down an extra pair of eyes,” he said, “dark meat and white meat, right?”  
Shane didn’t know what the fuck T-Dog was talking about, but it seemed to mean something to Merle.

“Right,” he said, drawing out the word by two or three syllables, “we all gotta play nice now, huh?”

“Exactly,” T-Dog nodded, and seemed to relax. Shane again had to bite back a glare, but he was getting twitchy just standing there.

“Fine, whatever. T-Dog has shotgun though,” he said walking back to the car.

“I’m cool with that,” Merle yelled, jogging to catch up with him.

Fucking dandy.

\---

“Wanna roll these damned windows down? My balls are sweatin’.” Shane wasn’t bothering to hide his glare any more, he spent as much time making eye contact with the slimy asshole in his backseat through the rearview mirror, as he did watching the road.

T-Dog and him shared a look, and neither of them moved to roll their windows down.

“Fine be that way. Just means y’all have to smell it,” Merle said, laughing as he spread his legs. Shane groaned and cracked his window open.

“Why don’t you grow up man?” His voice was rough and sour.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means people are dying, food was running out even before y’all went out with Glenn, we’re heading back into the fuckin’ city, and you’re treating it like some kind of joke.” Shane finally blew up. The past few days had been murder on his nerves, and now dealing with this motherfucker, he was grinding his teeth togvether between every word. “You’re gonna get everyone here killed if you don’t start taking shit seriously.”

“You think I’m not, motherfucker? I kept me an’ my baby brother safe for a month an’a half before joining up with you bozos.”

“Yeah, you were actin’ real serious up on the roof,” T-Dog said, looking nervous. His eyes flicked to where Shane’s hand rested on the shotgun before he kept talking. “Picking off walkers one at a time and drawing down a whole herd onto us.”

“I was trying to draw ‘em to one side of the building, so we could all get out the back!”

“You didn’t bother to look and see that they were already trapped between the chain fences and the truck in the back? They weren’t gonna go anywhere!”

“Just shut the fuck up!” Shane slammed his hand against the dash, letting out a heavy thump as it impacted the faux leather. “Christ. We’re fucking here.”

The gas station was small, only two pumps. At one point a tall sign had advertised it to everyone driving into the city, but a sedan had driven into the pole and now it was leaning dangerously to one side. The sedan’s driver side door was hanging open, and there was a black stain on the inside of the passenger window. The shop itself was dark, with boarded up windows and more than a few bits of graffiti painting the plywood. The only one that Shane could read said ‘Don’t Go In.’ It had been there the last time he’d passed through as well, but the backdoor was hanging open when he’d investigated. Whatever they’d been trying to warn people about was long gone.

“Alright, here’s whats gonna happen,” he said, turning around to look Dixon in the eye. “The three of us are gonna go in there, grab any food or medicine that’s left, and look for duct tape. And Merle, I swear to God, if I hear one word from you till we get back to the others, I’ll knock you on your ass.”

The older man just grinned back at him, mouth pocketed with missing teeth. He motioned that he was zipping his lips, and Shane took that as good enough.

\---

Shane pulled the door open, not bothering to go slow with it. The result was an awful screech as rusty hinges rubbed against themselves.

“Any creeps in here, now’s the time to come on out,” he shouted as he banged on the door with the flat of his hand.

“Shane!” T-Dog hissed, coming up behind him. “What are you doing?”

“I’d rather take on any stray geeks out in the open,” Shane replied, still banging on the door. “Unless you wanna head into the dark, cramped building without any idea if you’re alone?”

“And what about any other walkers nearby that hear you? I don’t wanna get surrounded and trapped inside!”

“...Yeah, okay,” Shane said, actually taking a moment to think about it. “You wanna stay and be lookout? You see anything walkin’ up on us, shout and we’ll come out and help you deal with it.”

“Yeah T-Dog, why don’t you be lookout,” said Merle, shoving between the two of them to get inside. “I’ll grab you a twinkie.”

Shane sighed and headed on in, slapping T-Dog on the shoulder as he passed by. They shared a look that many people share when dealing with someone they can’t ditch, but they’d also rather not be around.

The convenience store was dark, like Shane had assumed. The only source of light was the open doorway in the back that failed to penetrate past the first row of shelves, and the thin slits breaking past the boarded up windows. A lot of businesses had tried to close up shop like that from fear of looters. Back when looters were still a thing to be feared. The irony that Shane had arrested more than a couple people for breaking into gas stations just like this one was not lost on him. But after the dead rise, the badge had gone away, and if breaking and entering was what it took to stay alive and keep Lori and Carl safe, its what he would do.

That, and a whole lot more.

Shane’s eyes began to adjust to the dark, and he made out a shape in the corner, hunched over an overturned rack. His hand was halfway to his knife before he realized it was Merle, going through a pile of chip bags.

“Motherfuckin’ rats got to all the Doritos!”

Shane suppressed an eye twitch and moved on. He’d not found more than a couple scraps of food when he’d rolled through here the first time a couple weeks ago, he doubted Merle would find anything either.

The left side of the store, opposite the cash register was where they kept random things like cleaning equipment and gardening tools. He didn’t know who used to pop down to the gas station to buy a mop, but someone must have been because they had three in stock. Looters must not be too concerned about keeping their floors clean. It took him a couple minutes of searching, but after lifting up an overturned shelving unit, he found a roll of masking tape. Should be enough for at least a quick patch job.

Rolling through the medicine section, which was about six square feet, he grabbed a stray package of aspirin that had rolled ed under the shelves and was about to move on. Then he saw it, a little flash of blue further back.

It took grabbing the mop to get it out, but he did it. A bottle of sleeping pills, clacking aroun inside their container. He squeezed it tight, for a moment, just a moment, before setting it back down on the shelves.

‘I’m not that desperate,’ was his first thought, and ‘I’m not that kind of person’ followed a shortly after. But the first thought still rang in his head.


End file.
